THEY arrived with talk of record times and on day one of the Bathurst 1000 the Supercars field certainly delivered.
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Scott McLaughlin broke his 2017 lap record with a flying two minutes and 3.7728 seconds run around the 6.2 kilometre Mount Panorama circuit.
He was not the only driver to post a personal best either as the pace was on in every session. The times were inside the 2:04 bracket in practice one and co-driver times in the 2:05s in practice two.
Before the drivers take to the track for today's practice and qualifying sessions, check out some of their thoughts following day one.
Scott McLaughlin and Alex Prémat (#17 Shell V-Power Racing Ford)
Practice 1 - 7th (Fastest Lap: 2m05.3329s)
Practice 2 - 2nd (Fastest Lap: 2m05.6885s)
Practice 3 - 1st (Fastest Lap: 2m03.7728s - New Lap Record)
SCOTT MCLAUGHLIN
"You're hanging on over the top now, it's unbelievable the grip of the cars and I think everyone is having a full dip. The second last corner, I dropped a wheel there.
"That was a moment and a half because I kept my foot into it, I'm an idiot, I've got to remember it's Thursday! There's a little bit here and there, the green side of the car felt alright, so the left-handers were pretty good, but the right-handers it's still a little bit loose."
ALEX PRÉMAT
"Being back at Mount Panorama is always great, and watching Scott break the lap record was special.
"The car feels nice, it feels strong and I'm pretty happy. Bathurst is always a good time, a good race and I think we are in a strong position."
READ MORE: McLaughlin is hungry for Supercars success
Fabian Coulthard and Tony D'Alberto (#12 Shell V-Power Racing Ford)
Practice 1 - 6th (Fastest Lap: 2m05.2210s)
Practice 2 - 3rd (Fastest Lap: 2m05.7148s)
Practice 3 - 7th (Fastest Lap: 2m04.1348s)
FABIAN COULTHARD
"I can't be unhappy with today. Any day you get to drive a race car around Mount Panorama is a good day.
"It's fast out there, that was my fastest ever lap around this place. It's going to be a fast weekend, that's for sure."
TONY D'ALBERTO
"That's the fastest I've ever been around Bathurst! It's really quick this year, as we can see from Scott breaking the record on the first day.
"Car 12 is feeling pretty strong. We have a little bit of work to do, but we're looking good."
Lee Holdsworth and Thomas Randle (#5 The Bottle-O Ford Mustang)
Practice 1 - 2nd (Fastest lap 2m04.86s)
Practice 2 - 11th (Fastest lap 2m06.39)
Practice 3: 6th (Fastest lap 2m04.07s)
LEE HOLDSWORTH
"I was really happy with the day, we had a car that rolled out with a good balance, and we further tuned it through the day.
"It gave me confidence to push hard, and it had good speed, and we've got a bit more up our sleeve."
THOMAS RANDLE
"I was really happy to get a low six (2m06s), I think it was a six-three, I've only driven here once and that was last year. My first lap was, like, a 2:12, and I thought 'geez, this place is pretty daunting.'
"But we got there in the end, and I think Lee and Scaff have tuned the car even more. I'm pretty confident heading into tomorrow, now that I've also had a Super2 practice under my belt."
Cameron Waters and Michael Caruso (#6 Monster Energy Ford Mustang)
Practice 1 -13th (Fastest lap 2m05.81s)
Practice 2 - 7th (Fastest lap 2m06.16s)
Practice 3 - 3rd (Fastest lap 2m03.95s)
CAMERON WATERS
"Obviously to do a three around here in a Supercar, it woke me up, that's for sure. It was a good lap, there's probably a little bit more in it, I think everyone's probably got that story.
"We didn't really put on a good tyre until the end there, so I was kind of learning on the fly a little bit, but yeah, it was good."
MICHAEL CARUSO
"It's different, it's very, very different. I'm enjoying the (co-driver) role though, to be completely honest. It's nice to - in all respect to everyone I've driven for - it's nice to be in a car where I feel like I've got a genuine chance of sitting up here at the end of the weekend.
"Cam's driving the car really well, he knows what he needs to get out of the car, which is good. But my sessions, and pretty much the majority of the day we spent trying to figure out what the car's going to do for Sunday on heavy tanks.
"I mean that's obviously where the speed's going to need to be, it's nice for qualifying, but that's not my thing to worry about, and Cam seems to be doing a pretty good job at it."
Chaz Mostert and James Moffat (#55 Supercheap Auto Ford Mustang)
Practice 1 - 4th (Fastest lap 2m05.09s)
Practice 2 - 1st (Fastest lap 2m05.66s)
Practice 3 - 5th (Fastest lap 2m04.06s)
CHAZ MOSTERT
"Definitely a good start to the weekend, we just worked through our program today, tried some things with the car, and I think we've got it in a decent window.
"We've got some work to do, but we're competitive, so I'm pretty happy with the day."
JAMES MOFFATT
"A pretty boring Thursday is good around here. We obviously had our plan like pretty much everyone up and down pit lane would have, and we were able to get to it and stuck to it, so that was nice.
"To be P1 at the end, the team were reasonably competitive for most of the session. Pretty much race trim, so that's encouraging for Sunday."
Will Davison and Alex Davison (#23 Milwaukee Racing Ford Mustang)
Practice 1 - 12th (Fastest lap 2m05.81s)
Practice 2 - 10th (Fastest lap 2m06.27s)
Practice 3 - 4th (Fastest lap 2m03.99s)
WILL DAVISON
"Certainly a positive way to end day one. Long day, we certainly didn't roll out as well as we would have liked, the first session we had our challenges, but I'm definitely relieved tonight to have made huge inroads with the car.
"Definitely a good start, and we'll focus on qualifying world tomorrow, but we'll see. We're putting a lot of focus on the race car, we're on track, we learned a lot today, and I'm certainly feeling a lot more comfortable in the car."
ALEX DAVISON
"My day was good, our day was good. Uncle Will wasn't that happy after his first session, but they tidied it up for my session and it was not too bad.
"I was just building up and getting my eye in, and just continuously improving the car each session, and obviously it was reasonably quick at the end, so we're going in the right direction. For a Thursday I think it's good, we don't want to peak too early."
Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes (#888 Red Bull Holden Racing Commodore)
Practice 1- 1st (Fastest lap 2m04.6744s)
Practice 2 - 8th (Fastest lap 2m06.1757s)
Practice 3 - 2nd (Fastest lap 2m03.9237s)
JAMIE WHINCUP
"All in all, it was a good day. The car was well and truly on the pace out on the track. We worked through our program very methodically and achieved what we wanted to achieve in the sessions.
"Any day you can complete all three sessions is a good day, so we'll take that. It's a long weekend ahead though, so we will keep focused and make sure we stay there or thereabouts."
CRAIG LOWNDES
"For my session it went fairly smoothly. It was great to be back in the car and get some laps under my belt. It's good to get into a rhythm and work on more of a race car scenario than a qualifying car.
"The car has come out of the transporter fairly close to the mark. Jamie did a fantastic job in the third session . The car looks like it has the goods to be on pace for the rest of the weekend."
Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander (#97 Red Bull Holden Racing Commodore)
Practice 1- 5th (Fastest lap 2m05.1577s)
Practice 2 - 4th (Fastest lap 2m05.7200s)
Practice 3 - 8th (Fastest lap 2m04.1501s)
SHANE VAN GISBERGEN
"The car wasn't good in practice one. It was hard to drive, but it got better as we tried to keep up with the track evolving. Garth did practice two and he did well. In practice three, the car was good, and the team made some good in-roads from the sessions before; it was easier to drive.
"The new tyres were a little bit off, but it's not the end of the world. I kept making little mistakes, but also, we're not 100 percent on the limit, you don't need to be on a Thursday, so it was a really good start.
"We're just trying to make it a little bit more balanced across the top to make it easier for us. It's hard to follow, so we're going to have to try to come up with a car that makes it easy to pass people or we're hopefully up front and can race up to cars ahead. It's going to be a fine line, I think.
"It's so hard to follow here this year, it's so much faster. We've got more downforce, which means dirtier air. You're more reliant on the downforce, so when you follow someone you don't have that clean air."
GARTH TANDER
"I felt really comfortable, but certainly taking no risks. For me, I was understanding how the Red Bull Holden Racing Team car behaves at Bathurst because it's not somewhere that you can make a mistake and get away with it, especially across the top, so I just wanted to build up to it.
"I managed to do that through the session. I'm really comfortable with where the car was at. We made some changes that improved the car and the important thing is that Shane and I are saying the same thing as far as our feedback goes for the balance of the car.
"I thought for me it was a good day. I'll sleep well tonight knowing that I feel comfortable in the car and look forward to tomorrow. The whole process of learning the Triple Eight way for me continues. As far as communication with all the crew and my description of how the car behaves, it seems to be working. It's good that when we get to Bathurst and we're doing it for real and the pressure's on, it all works well."
READ MORE: Tander is ready to charge as a Red Bull
Rick Kelly and Dale Wood (#15 Castrol Racing Altima)
Practice 1 - 9th (Fastest lap 2m05.4112s)
Practice 2 - 9th (Fastest lap 2m06.1856s)
Practice 3 - 10th (Fastest lap 2m04.4975)
RICK KELLY
"It's been a really positive day, George my engineer did a really good job of the role-out setup, it was straight on the money and really comfortable and that's a really important key at this place, is to get the drivers comfortable in the first couple of sessions. If it's a bit hairy over the top it can take your confidence away and it can take a long time to build it back up."
"We progressed through the sessions and maintained pace and position in the top ten so I'm pretty happy with that. We did a lap today which was the quickest I'd ever been around here by half a second and that's in the first practice session so it's interesting after that lap I thought we would have been even a little further up the grid but it seems like everyone ran two sets of greens and we only ran one.
"With the aero change it's certainly going to assist us but I still don't think we're in the same ballpark as the other two manufacturers but it's a good help and come race day I think it'll be a good help for us to be able to compete with the other guys on the straights which will be a first for us here."
André Heimgartner and Bryce Fulwood (#7 Plus Fitness Racing Altima)
Practice 1 - 11th (Fastest lap 2m05.7383)
Practice 2 - 6th (Fastest lap 2m06.1449)
Practice 3 - 13th (Fastest lap 2m04.6028)
ANDRE HEIMGARTNER
"We put some green tyres on right at the end of that session but we just weren't able to maximise it and improve on the strong top three lap we had towards the end of practice on a set of 20-lap old tyres.
"It's a really positive sign from everyone, the car is the strongest car I've ever had here which is really good and we seem to be extracting speed from it so come tomorrow, might be dry, might be wet, we'll wait and see but I think we're looking good."
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Garry Jacobson and Dean Fiore (#3 Rabble.club Racing Altima)
Practice 1 - 20th (Fastest lap 2m06.3389s)
Practice 2 - 16th (Fastest lap 2m06.9285)
Practice 3 - 16th (Fastest lap 2m04.7546)
GARRY JACOBSON
"With this latest change to the car I think we've really gained some high-speed stability. I was a little bit worried after practice one to be honest, we were off the pace compared to the other Nissans but by the end of the day we'd brought that down to within a few tenths so we're moving in the right direction.
"I found today that we were able to maximise the green tyre whereas previously we've put greens on and not picked up any more front end grip.
"So we're moving in the right direction we just need to keep up the momentum and the intensity throughout the rest of the weekend."
Simona De Silvestro and Alex Rullo (#78 Team Harvey Norman Altima)
Practice 1 - 10th (Fastest lap 2m05.4728s)
Practice 2 - 20th (Fastest lap 2m07.200s)
Practice 3 - 25th (Fastest lap 2m05.7410s)
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO
"All in all it was a positive day for us, this morning was really good but this afternoon we didn't run on the green tyres so the time wasn't really representative. We gave Alex another run towards the end of the session but all in all I think we're right there with Rick and Andre, I think we can be pretty happy about that.
"There are a few little things we need to fix in the car, especially on the longer runs to be a bit more comfortable but I think it was a really good start today and I look forward to tomorrow.
"It's hard to tell how much difference the aero change has made, the car definitely feels comfortable and our pace is good if we look at all of us - we're in the mix, we might not be flying away in P1 but we're where we should be so that's positive."